Dead Ended Fear
by Oasis Blackmore
Summary: Their love was their fear. MacDonald-Venturi was the dead end. Oneshot, weird fic. Anger venting for me.


**A/N: This is a story in honor of something that wholly prevented me from viewing "Crushing the Coach" this Friday. –sniffles- I can't vent my anger any other way, so I write. Trust me, I don't plan on this being an angry fic. It's just centered around dearest haunted houses. --**

**Dead-Ended Fear**

"I am _not_ going in with him," Casey insisted, irritably pointing a finger at her apathetic stepbrother and glaring at her mother.

"Would you rather go in with _me_?" Nora asked knowingly, tired of her daughter's argument.

"Why can't I go with Lizzie?" Casey demanded.

"Yea, why can't she?" Derek pitched in, not keen on going into the "Terror Train" with his _dearest_ stepsister either.

"Because _I_ want to go with Ed," Lizzie supplied.

Casey gave her a pleading look.

"Sorry, Case. We have a bet." Lizzie shrugged.

Casey sighed. "_Mom_, you can't make me go with Derek."

"Well, then you aren't going at all," Nora argued.

"And _you _won't go either," George added, spotting Derek's smug look.

"Aw, Dad, come on! Don't you trust us to go by ourselves?" Derek whined, forcing an innocent look, which Casey duplicated perfectly; she was becoming quite the liar, actually.

"No." Their parents' responses were unanimous, probably because they were well-practiced.

The conductor of the train tapped his foot impatiently. "Well, somebody needs to go in before our corpses rot," he stated gruffly.

Casey let out a long breath. "Fine, I'll go with _Derek_," she conceded, her voice laden with disgust.

"I guess if I _have_ to, I'll take _Klutzilla _and make sure she doesn't fall and ruin the whole train," Derek capitulated.

"Ha ha-let's go," Casey huffed sarcastically, silently cursing the "haunted" train's two-per-group (excluding parents with children under seven years of age) rule.

The whistle screamed as the grudging teens stepped up the stairs and onto the main platform, where what appeared to be a Vatican clown stood, his Catholic priest cap towering above his initial height. The loud noise made Casey jump, but she refused to show any other kind of fear around Derek, who would, no doubt, use it against her at one point in the future.

The church-oriented theme continued into the first of four cars as a nurse in nun's clothing jumped out at them, exclaiming some unintelligible phrase. They continued, both utterly sullen and unaware of how annoying snarky teens, who refused to be scared in a haunted house, were.

Near the end of the car, a woman, with black hair that covered her face, cradled a deformed baby before holding it out to the pair, asking if they thought it was all right. Casey jumped back and let out a squeak of surprise. Derek glanced at her, and she glared back at him.

The next passage was narrow and dark, and Casey's breath became quick. She tried to anticipate whatever was next in the scary set-up. Derek, however, was showing no signs of caring that he was supposed to be screaming; why had he even forced his parents to waste money on this?

Strobe lights. Casey _hated_ strobe lights, but the second car was full of them, making even the most inanimate of objects come to life. A girl, perched on top of a table, cocked her head at them, and Casey stared up at her, wide-eyed.

They passed a few more obstacles, which jumped out at them. They had almost reached the third car, when a hand poked out of a mesh of chicken wire to Casey's right. She screamed and clutched Derek's arm, desperate. They both stopped in the middle of the entire scene, staring at one another.

And there it was.

Fear.

Derek's eyes held a shimmering fear, the likes of which Casey had never known him to possess.

But he wasn't staring at the haunting creatures and objects around them. He was staring directly at her. At Casey MacDonald.

Derek was _afraid_ of _her_.

So Casey let go of him, shaking with her own kind of fear. Her own kind of confusion.

They continued.

The third car held darkness. Coming straight from the flashing strobe lights, it was pitch black, and Casey again reached out for Derek, who hesitantly clasped her hand in his. His fear was still evident.

Casey screamed again when a cackling witch stepped from the shadows, crowing, "What's for dinner?" and roughly wrenching a crying girl into action.

"Not me! Please don't let her eat me! Help! Please!" the girl begged, struggling to free herself from the witch's grasp.

Derek smirked, his mischievous personality getting the better of him. He dropped Casey's hand. "Do you need mouth-to-mouth?" he asked the wailing girl.

Glares.

From everyone.

Especially Casey.

And again there was fear.

Derek turned away, nervously muttering, "Right, sorry.", and the girl continued her act. That's all it was, an act. Just like Derek's act. He was _always_ acting. Because of fear.

They passed a cannibalistic chef and his frothing, caged pet. They both jumped as another witch burst into the light, and a werewolf snarled at them. They both screamed at a skeleton prop, which turned out to be a skeleton costumed-person.

Derek enveloped Casey in his arms, silently assuring her that she was safe, even if he was not.

She was crying now, out of fear. Where had her resolution gone? Good question. Fear dissolves resolutions easily, but fear also allows people to _make _resolutions. Fear does these things.

The final car was a maze. With strobe lights. And Casey grew to hate this car as they attempted to weave their way to the end.

"This is the wrong way!" a hideous figure bellowed as they hit the black, landscaping plastic at the dead end.

Casey was sobbing.

They burst out of the end of the car and hurried down the steps, Casey wailing into Derek's shirt and Derek stroking her back, despite his fear.

But he didn't really have a reason to be afraid.

So what if he secretly loved his stepsister?

So _what_ if she couldn't possibly feel the same and more than likely hated his guts.

Things could have been worse.

"Why are you being so nice to me?" Casey sniffled, backing away from him and wiping her eyes. Her fear was transformed. She now feared the reason he feared her. Or had she feared it all along?

"Because _you're _being nice to _me_." Fear. "Well, you're actually being a clingy, bawling freak, but whatever."

Casey laughed coldly. "Yea, whatever."

"You seriously flipped out in there," Derek declared after a beat.

"Well, you were scared, too," Casey countered.

"Of you flipping out," Derek rebutted.

"Of me flipping out?"

_Of you, in general._ "Yea. Psycho." _Of what you do to me._

Casey rolled her eyes. Fear? **He was _afraid _of _her_.**

So what if she had destroyed her resolutions?

So _what_ if he feared her?

"You weren't afraid of me for flipping out." Casey stared at him. "Because you know I'm not a psycho."

Ah, fear. "I beg to differ."

"You beg to lie."

_Because I'm afraid of you._ "You just barely learned _how_ to lie. Don't try and analyze _my_ skills." Derek crossed his arms. Where was the rest of the family? He looked back to see that he and Casey were a good thirty feet from the last car. Had they been walking? **Fear does these things.** Fear had made them walk away.

But now they were at a crossroads.

"Derek." Casey was imploring him. Fear?

"What?" Play dumb.

She took a deep breath, the air in front of her lips turning to steam as she spoke. "Why are you afraid of me?"

Submit to fear. "Because you're a psycho." Derek said the words insincerely.

And she knew.

He could tell.

So he exhaled, the air in front of his lips becoming the same steam hers had. "Because . . ."

"Because it's wrong?" Casey asked sadly.

Derek looked up, his eyes darkening. Fear couldn't help him. But he was still afraid.

Lies were fear's accomplices, and they had gone on vacation. "Something like that."

"And we can't."

"Can't . . ." Distantly, the words were uttered. Quietly, they lingered in the bitterly cold air.

And they knew.

They couldn't.

"Dead end," Derek chuckled ruefully.

"But I'm still afraid."

Because she _did _know how he felt.

And she _did _reciprocate his feelings.

And she was so afraid of him, that she itched to make him admit that she was not alone in her torture.

But, of course, she wasn't.

Fear doesn't come to an end. It never really does. But the things that produce our fear are often so obscure or so wrong or so blatantly short-lived that we never really get to understand them.

And when we do, dead ends are often met.

Unless we accept fear as a friend. As an enemy. As a driving force to take a step back. Back down the path, from whence we came. Away from that damn dead end.

But Derek Venturi and Casey MacDonald could never really accept their fear. Because it was the fear of others, as well. And it wasn't just some petty phobia. No, theirs was a fear of happiness and sadness, euphoria and despair, being rolled into one. Because they weren't wholly selfish. And they weren't wholly selfless. And they were afraid.

"Casey! Derek!" Lizzie called, her voice joyful, innocent. Did she know fear as they did?

They traipsed back to the butt of the train, thoughtful, unsure, afraid.

"What's up, kiddo?" Casey asked lightly. Act. Avoid the dead end, even if it's already been reached.

"Look!" Lizzie shoved her stepbrother forward, and Derek and Casey noted the quickly-fading fear in his eyes.

But was just an innocent fear of scary things in haunted houses. Nothing like their fear.

"I won my bet!"

"A true Venturi in the making," Derek quipped, ruffling his youngest stepsister's hair. He wasn't afraid of her. Except that she could tell, too. Deep down, she saw their fear.

"She's a _MacDonald_, through and through," Casey argued.

"I'm a MacDonald-Venturi," Lizzie corrected them both, grinning.

Their love was their fear. MacDonald-Venturi was the dead end.

**A/N: Well . . . that certainly ended more deeply than I had expected. Review if you like.**

**Post Script: And just to let you all know, those smart-ass kids that go through haunted houses, determined not to be scared are a) money wasters and b) effing retarded. Sorry. I just really, really hate that. We work hard for your money, damn it! Respect our authoritai!**

**Post, Post Script: I really, REALLY can't wait until Tuesday. That's when I get to see the new (now old –sniffles-) eppy! ZOMG! I am SO excited!**


End file.
